


All Signs Point To

by exmanhater



Series: That Round and Round Thing [4]
Category: Women's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roller Derby, F/F, Femslash, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-17 01:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10583229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater
Summary: Amanda Kessel joins the Switchblades, meets way too many pranksters, and learns to tell when someone is actually hitting on her and not joking.





	

**Author's Note:**

> With loving thanks to hockey twitter for helping me out when I needed pranks (I am the least likely prankster in the entire world) and to scintilla10 for her early beta work that helped me get this at least somewhat coherent. And huge thanks to metal_chocobo, who inspired the whole middle part, is responsible for Noora's derby name, and without whom I'd never have finished this damn thing. This story officially ends my hockey rpf career, which is a sad thing for me, especially since it means I've given up on my Sid/Geno roller derby fic. But I hope you enjoy this, and just remember that Geno's derby name is From Russia With Shove :D
> 
> Derby names:  
> Julie Chu—Chublocca (Jammer)  
> Hilary Knight—Blackest Knight (Jammer)  
> Amanda Kessel—Amandaconda (Jammer)  
> Shannon Szabados—Shannihilator (Blocker)  
> Geneviève Lacasse—General Crash (Blocker)  
> Noora Raty—The Finnisher (Blocker)

The first time Amanda met Hilary Knight, she was half-naked in a locker room covered in sweat. Tryouts for the roller derby league in her new city had gone pretty well and Amanda was feeling generally good about life, until she turned while pulling off her soaked t-shirt and saw almost six feet of muscled perfection staring at her.

"Hey, it's Kessel, right?" the vision said. Her dark hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and her tanktop showed off impressive biceps. She had aviators pushed back on her head and a cocky smirk, and Amanda inwardly groaned. Just her fucking luck to run into exactly her type while she smelled like a gym sock.

Amanda shook her head to clear her thoughts, then nodded frantically when she realized what the actual question had been. "Oh, yeah, that's me. Amanda."

She stuck out her hand, blushing when the woman grinned at her and shook her hand politely but with a distinctly mocking air.

"Hilary Knight," the woman said. "I'm on the Switchblades. Hopefully we snap you up; you were killing it out there."

"Thanks," Amanda said. "I—I don't know where I'll end up, but the 'blades would be cool."

"We're the fucking best," Hilary said, and winked. Amanda shivered. She'd have given almost anything for the ability to give a coherent reply, but she was too conscious of her red face and disgusting hair to come up with anything to say.

"Well, see you around, newbie," Hilary said after a second of awkward silence, and sailed out of the locker room in a swirl of jock perfection.

Amanda groaned and lightly hit her head against the wall. "Off to an excellent start, Kess," she said out loud, and headed to the shower.

+++

"Why didn't I just go to law school?" Amanda said when Phil answered her call a few weeks later. "It would be less intimidating."

"It's hard to imagine roller derby girls being more intimidating than law school professors," Phil replied, which just proved that he hadn't met Amanda's new team. Or any roller derby players he wasn't related to, actually.

"That's easy for you to say," she replied, and then changed the subject. Amanda had earned her spot with the Switchblades and was suffering from some fairly debilitating hero worship, but she couldn't tell Phil that was why she'd called. He'd just laugh, and then probably give her really practical advice that she wouldn't follow and then he'd laugh at her about that, too. Hearing him talk about his own team and other things that were happening in his life did distract her from her own worries for a bit. They'd always done that for each other, and she knew Phil wouldn't bug her for details.

When she ended the call, though, it all came back. She could hardly believe she actually got to play with Chublocca and Shannihilator. She'd spent most of their practices so far speaking as little as possible, which she knew her old teammates would have had a hard time believing. It wasn't really her style to be quiet and retiring, but her coaches were famous and most of her new teammates were players she'd admired for a long time. She could tell it was going to take a while before she relaxed enough to pull any pranks, which was a shame, because as far as she could tell, the 'blades were better at pranks than any of the other teams in the league.

At her last practice, the 'blades had shared the rink with the Painguins, and while their captain Sid had come over to welcome Amanda to the league, the rest of them kept a careful distance in the locker room. Sid had caught Amanda's confusion and laughed before she returned to her side of the room.

"It's not personal," she'd told Amanda. "It's just that the last time we shared practice with you guys, Geno and Flower ended up superglued together. We're a little wary."

Amanda had tried to hide her grin, but it was no good—Sid groaned before turning away. "Nevermind, it's clear you got placed on the right team. Good luck, Kessel!"

Julie and Hilary then suddenly appeared on either side of Amanda. "You're just chicken, Sidney Crosby," Julie yelled at Sid's retreating back. Sid raised her middle finger without looking.

Amanda had just kept her mouth shut while Hilary grinned and poked her in the side. "Don't worry, Kess," she'd said. "We'll train you up right."

Amanda didn't try to reply. She'd been pretty sure that once she found her feet, she would fit right in. Away from the game, away from the rush that came with skating, it was harder to bring up that confident feeling.

+++

The night of her debut game with the team, Amanda held her sharpie in the locker room after putting on all her gear, trying to work up the nerve to ask someone to draw an arrow for her. She wasn't sure how much time she spent in silence, but long before she'd made a decision, Hilary skated up to her and snatched the sharpie out of her hand.

"You need someone to draw your arrow, right?" Hilary asked. "I can do it, if you want."

"Um, yeah?" Amanda said. "That would be—good, thank you."

Hilary took her hand—the correct one, and even Phil hadn't remembered that for the longest time—and held it up. She carefully drew the arrow, tongue peeking out of her mouth in what Amanda assumed was fake concentration. It was an arrow; it didn't require a lot of thought. Hilary's arrow was straight and blocky, a little thicker than Amanda usually liked it, but she thought it might be appropriate for the arrow to change now that she was with a new team.

When Hilary finished and put the cap back on the sharpie, she looked back at Amanda with a questioning look on her face. "Did I do it right?" she asked.

Amanda smiled reflexively, looking back up at Hilary. "It's perfect," she said.

"Good," Hilary said, winking at Amanda. "I wouldn't want our cutest new jammer to be unhappy with my artistic talents."

Amanda made what she knew must be an extremely stupid face. "Um?" she said, without meaning to open her mouth at all.

Hilary just grinned, and skated backwards toward the hallway that led to the rink.

"Good luck out there," she called, twisting sharply to turn around and go through the doorway.

Amanda's face felt redder than a fire hydrant, and she could only hope that everyone else would attribute it to nerves about her first game.

+++

They won the game, which kickstarted an awesome winning streak. Amanda didn't take as long to relax around the team as she'd feared, either—it was hard to stay in awe of Julie when her favorite thing to do in the locker room involved drawing hipster mustaches on the whiteboard whenever Wick wasn't paying attention. She also liked drawing them on people, if anyone could be caught asleep or off guard long enough, which Amanda found out the hard way during an away game in Vancouver.

But Hilary's bewildering method of welcoming her to the team by flirting outrageously didn't stop. Amanda spent about three weeks in a state of increasing confusion as Hilary did things like making Noora move so Hilary could sit next to Amanda during a team dinner, or fighting with Shannon over who was going to draw Amanda's arrow before a game.

Amanda obviously was into her and her flirting—Hilary was gorgeous, kind underneath all the sarcasm and pranks, and told hilariously bad jokes—but Hilary wasn't serious, that much was clear. She teased everyone. Amanda wasn't special.

That didn't make it any easier to treat Hilary like just a friend, and neither did Hilary's amazing skating. She was their only jammer who could consistently pull off flawless jumps on the inner edge of the track, flying past (and sometimes over) the opposing team's blockers and never cutting the track. Amanda got hot for good derby, apparently. It made postgame showers pretty fraught with temptation, but she always managed to save it for when she got back home.

Even worse than the flirting and the skating was Hilary's insistence on hugging Amanda after every jam where she picked up points. They both jammed, so they were hardly ever on the track at the same time, but whenever Amanda skated back to the bench, gasping for air, Hilary would grab her for a hug or some kind of touch before taking her own place on the jam line. If they were both on the bench for a jam, Hilary made sure to sit next to Amanda and compliment her last jam. Even when Amanda cut the track, Hilary always had an encouraging comment to make.

Having all of Hilary's body pressed into hers, the power of her muscles evident, did nothing to keep Amanda from inappropriate thoughts.

"Have you ever had to tell someone to stop flirting with you because you like it too much?" she asked Phil one night, when she was tipsy enough that it seemed like a good idea. They were Skyping, so she could see Phil's reaction as he started laughing and shook his head.

"Usually, if I like it when someone flirts with me, I just ask them out," Phil replied, once he got the laughing under control. "Then they don't have to stop flirting with me at all."

Amanda flopped her head down on her pillow, shoving her laptop to the side. "It's not like that," she protested. "She's just—a flirty kind of person. She does it with everyone."

"When you say "flirt", what do you actually mean?" Phil asked.

Amanda waved her hand vaguely. "Just, always sitting next to me, and hugging me a lot, and teasing me about things. She called me cute once? You know."

Amanda wasn't looking at her laptop screen, but she could guess Phil's expression based on his longsuffering sigh. 

"I think you might need a refresher on the differences between fake flirting and real flirting," Phil said. "That sounds like real flirting to me."

"You haven't seen her with everyone else, though," Amanda said. "It's really not different with me, I swear."

She looked over at her laptop in time to see Phil's face scrunch into a disbelieving expression.

"Alright," he said. "I won't argue with you, but if you like her that much, you could just tell her. Then she'll either tell you that she likes you, too, or she'll stop flirting. Problem solved either way."

"If I wanted logical advice," Amanda said, "I would have called mom."

"What do you want, then?" Phil asked.

"Sympathy?" Amanda said. She was pretty sure there wasn't anyone in her family who would adequately provide the kind of sympathy she wanted without an excessive amount of teasing. She was just shit out of luck, there; pranking was definitely genetic.

Phil laughed, proving her completely correct. "No can do, baby sis. I can tell you about my awesome game tonight, though."

Amanda sighed. "I'll take it. How many points did you get?"

+++

The flirting eased up a little after a while and Amanda wasn't sure exactly why, but she was grateful. It made things a bit simpler, and as she settled into the team dynamic, she relaxed and starting acting a bit more like herself.

When it came to mischief, Hilary was basically the perfect partner in crime. At first, Amanda had thought it was mostly Julie and Gen pranking other teams, but then she caught Hilary saran-wrapping the toilets in the Caps' locker room, and before she could chicken out, she offered to help. Hilary's expression was priceless for second before she cracked a huge grin.

"Amanda Kessel, I never suspected you were hiding a demon under your angelic visage!" she said, and Amanda groaned.

"One, I don't have an angelic visage, and two, have you considered adding glitter to the mix here?" she replied.

"Oooh, good idea! Where?"

They snuck back into the main (shared) practice rink afterwards and spent the rest of the night organizing the future of Project Sparkle Motion. Amanda was worried they hadn't quite been stealthy enough because Noora and Gen were both giving them sidelong glances, but she forgot all about it when they were released and Hilary grabbed Amanda's sleeve and tugged.

"You want to go get dinner and then hit a craft supply store?" she asked. She grinned conspiratorially at Amanda and nodded her head at the exit. "I'll drive."

"Definitely," Amanda said. "If you can drop me off at home after? I took the train here."

"Uh—" Hilary started, her face doing something weird Amanda couldn't quite parse. It passed quickly enough that she thought she might have imagined it, and Hilary nodded.

"Come on," she said, unlocking her car and gesturing Amanda to the passenger side.

+++

After that, it was easier for Amanda to keep the two big competing feelings she had about Hilary separate. The crush stayed with her, but it was too busy being buried under the friendship to interfere with her life. Most of the time.

Hilary started inviting herself over for movie nights every once in awhile. At first, she only came over after practice so they could plan new pranks, but after a few months Hilary could almost always be counted on to show up on Amanda's day off with a grin and a plan for what they should Netflix next. It was easy and comfortable, and Amanda loved every minute of it. 

They swapped childhood stories in between marathoning bad reality TV and even worse action movies. Hilary had played hockey as a kid, too, but she hadn't had the same Hockey Family Upbringing Amanda had, and was always asking questions about what it had been like. That helped Amanda remember the best pranks her brothers had helped her pull on teammates, and gave her and Hilary more ideas for their own. Before long, anytime Noora or Gen found them whispering together led to a mandatory safety check on everyone's equipment to make sure there wasn't any glitter waiting to pounce.

Amanda thought that was a little harsh. They usually only pranked the other teams, not their own. Still, it was the most fun she'd had with roller derby since she'd first started in high school.

Then they had a rough game. The Caps seemed intent on spending more time in the penalty box than on the track, but they were still winning anyway and it was pissing off all of the 'blades. Amanda got pushed off the track so hard in the second half that she had to sit out for a few minutes and let the paramedics check her over. It was a pretty bad hit, but she'd had worse. She couldn't focus on the bout, but she heard the uproar in the next jam and the loud, long whistles that meant someone had just committed a serious penalty.

The entire bench full of 'blades started shouting and Amanda waved off the paramedics and fought her way to the front, where… where Hilary was being held back by two refs, who were clearly having trouble keeping her from her target. Her face was red and Amanda could tell she'd be sporting a pretty nice black eye by tomorrow. Then Amanda realized who Hilary was trying to fight. It was Jocelyne Lamoureux, who'd been responsible for knocking Amanda breathless in the last jam, and she was shaking out her knuckles like she'd just thrown a punch. Amanda swallowed hard and moved closer to the track.

"What the fuck, Knighter?" she called. Hilary's face snapped to hers immediately, and she sagged in the refs' hold. 

"You okay, Kess?" she asked.

"I'm fine!" Amanda replied, and shook her head. "Stop trying to get thrown out of the game!"

"Too late," Julie said, her face blank except for a slight, disappointed frown. She'd just left the huddle of the rest of the refs. "You're fouled out for the rest of the bout, Knighter, and you'll be lucky to play next time."

Amanda swallowed again and watched Hilary, who just shrugged and pulled away from the two refs still hovering, making sure she wouldn't lunge at Lamoureux again. Hilary skated the long way around the track, passing Amanda with a wink. "Worth it," she called back over her shoulder, and Amanda shook her head and skated back to the bench.

After the game, Amanda cornered Hilary in the locker room with an ice pack. "Sit down, you wild thing," she told her.

Hilary grinned, her eye already swollen shut. "Gonna play doctor with me, Kess?"

Amanda refused to smile back. "What the hell was that?" she asked instead, setting the ice pack gently against Hilary's cheek and eye. "We lost, and it's not just because you got kicked out, but that didn't help."

Hilary deflated, wincing at the ice pack. "I can't let Slammer can't get away with that shit too often," she said. "She was completely out of control out there."

"The only person out of control was you," Amanda said. "And I can take care of myself. Even if I couldn't, it's not your job to enforce, it's Noora and Shannon's."

"I know," Hilary sighed. "Ouch, fuck, that's cold!"

Amanda couldn't help softening. "Just, please don't do that again? At least, not for me."

"It wasn't for you," Hilary said, turning to look away from Amanda. "It was for the team."

"Right," Amanda said. It was clear Hilary was lying, and Amanda was having a hard time not reading into it. She was suddenly hyper aware of Hilary's skin, where Amanda's hand brushed against her neck. They were both still sweaty, and while Amanda felt disgusting, Hilary looked gorgeous, flushed and glistening—at that Amanda abruptly cut off her train of thought. One, it was a pretty bad sign that she thought someone was glistening, and two, letting herself think that way would only lead to trouble.

They were finally friends. Amanda wasn't going to ruin that.

"Well, if you're going to become a goon, you might want to take some classes," she said, trying to lighten the mood. "Who taught you to fight?"

Hilary cracked a smile, then grimaced. "Don't make me laugh when I only have one good eye," she said, and the night went back to normal.

+++

The Switchblades made it into the final that spring with a decisive win over the Caps, and with that, the only thing standing in their way of the League championship were the Blackshocks, who they would face in two weeks. But before Amanda started to worry about that, she wanted to celebrate their win tonight, and judging by the amount of screaming in the locker room and the emptying area, her team agreed.

Amanda didn't notice that Hilary was missing until they started dividing up into groups to take cabs to the bar.

"Where's Knighter?" she asked Julie. "Isn't she coming?"

Julie stared at her for a moment without saying anything, and Amanda twitched. She felt pretty sure that Julie knew how she felt about Hilary, but she didn't know what Julie thought about it as one of Hilary's closest friends.

"She said she was a little tired and went home," Julie said eventually. "But I think maybe she just needs some encouragement. You have time to go drag her out?"

"If she's tired, maybe we should just—" Amanda stopped at the look on Julie's face. "Or not! Sure, I'll go grab her."

"Good," Julie said, and Amanda turned to leave, looking back when Julie added, "Hey, Kess—"

"Yeah?"

Julie shook her head. "Go easy on her, eh?"

Amanda smiled. "Sure thing, Chuey."

Hilary answered the door in sweatpants and a tank top, her hair already tucked into a backwards snapback. She looked like a frat boy, and Amanda just wanted to kiss her and never stop, which said horrible things about her own taste in women. Amanda didn't care.

"That was fast," Hilary said, then actually looked at Amanda. "You're not the pizza delivery guy."

"Guilty," Amanda said. "Julie said you were tired, but I'm here to tempt you to our team dinner."

Hilary smiled, but it looked fake. Amanda hated how wrong it felt to see Hilary faking a smile. 

"I'm not really up for team stuff tonight, sorry," Hilary said, fiddling with the drawstring of her sweatpants.

"Can I come in for a minute at least?" Amanda gave her most convincing smile. Hilary's face cracked into a real grin, and she opened the door wider to let Amanda in.

Amanda took in the scene in Hilary's living room, and suddenly felt bad for forcing her way in. The couch had about ten different DVD cases scattered on it, plus Hilary's oversized Switchblades sweatshirt. Amanda took a closer look—it was clear that Hilary had been planning on some serious comfort binge-watching, because the DVDs she had out were all six The Fast & The Furious movies.

"Vin Diesel marathon without me?" Amanda asked. She fell a little short of the easy, joking tone she'd meant to use.

Hilary shuffled after Amanda into the room and stood awkwardly by the couch. "Yeah, I'm really not up for partying tonight," she said, not looking Amanda in the eye.

Amanda felt even guiltier.

"I'm sorry," she told Hilary. "You clearly want alone time and I shouldn't have come. We'll celebrate for you, okay? You should do what you want tonight, you're the reason we won." She gave Hilary a shoulder squeeze and turned to go.

"Hey, no, wait a minute," Hilary said, catching Amanda's hand, her thumb rubbing over the arrow she had drawn on earlier that night, and halting Amanda's progress toward the door. "It's fine, Kess, I'll come with you."

"But you just said you weren't up for it," Amanda said, staring at Hilary's hand holding hers and wishing it meant more than it did. Hilary snatched her hand back quickly when she saw where Amanda was looking, and Amanda pulled her hand towards her chest, feeling suddenly cold.

Hilary ran a hand through her hair. "I just—I need a little time to adjust," she said. "We're gonna be great friends, but I have to get over the crush first."

Amanda stared.

Hilary flushed slightly, and stuck out her chin. "I'm a fucking champion at getting over crushes, okay? You can't date girls and not figure out how to be friends with your exes, or your ex-crushes. I promise I won't let it get weird."

"Crush on who?" Amanda asked, mind whirling and just wanting to be done with this whole conversation. 

"That's not very nice," Hilary said, then really looked at Amanda. "Holy shit, Chuey was right, you had no idea I was flirting with you."

"But you flirt with everyone!" Amanda said. "That's just—that's just how you are, you were being nice and helping me adjust to the team." She looked down at her feet. "You could have anyone you wanted."

Hilary laughed, and Amanda swung her gaze back to Hilary, glaring, but her indignation died at the fondness in Hilary's expression.

"Fuck," Hilary said, reaching out to take Amanda's hand again and tracing her arrow, the color slightly faded on her skin after a hard night of skating. "Babe, you are the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen, and I've been hitting on you unrelentingly since you started practicing with us."

Amanda suddenly understood a lot of previously confusing conversations with her teammates.

"I thought you were letting me down easy and I was trying to back off," Hilary continued. "But since I apparently wasn't being clear before—" she grabbed Amanda's other hand and pulled her in close. "—I would like to date you, and fuck you, regularly. You wanna?"

"Smooth," Amanda said, smiling so widely that she felt dizzy with it.

"Smooth didn't get me anywhere," Hilary said, her gaze dropping to Amanda's mouth. "I'm trying obvious now. Is it working?"

Amanda smiled. "It's working," she said, reaching up to pull Hilary's mouth to hers, pressing their lips together. Hilary opened her mouth and deepened the kiss, pulling Amanda even closer. Amanda had completely forgotten about dinner when Hilary pulled away, breathing heavily.

"We're going to be late if we don't leave now," she said.

Amanda shrugged, tracking the movement of Hilary's lips as they moved. "Who cares? This is more fun."

+++

When they arrived at the restaurant, they were both late and very guilty-looking. Noora started a slow-clap, which Amanda hoped would end up just being one of those strange Noora things, but then Julie took one look at them and did a fist-pump.

"In your face, Knighter," she said. "You owe me fifty bucks! So do you, Gen, pay up."

Amanda felt like she should be upset that her team had apparently been betting on her lovelife, but she couldn't muster up anything but mild amusement.

Geneviève pulled out her wallet and stuffed some bills into Julie's hand, sighing heavily. "You guys have the worst timing," she complained. "You couldn't have waited three days?"

Amanda sat down, shaking her head as Hilary glared at Julie. "I don't owe you shit," Hilary said. "You could have told me I was being an idiot!"

"Now where would be the fun in that?" Julie said. "Also, I kind of did. You were just too much of an idiot to notice. Sit down and order a drink, lovebirds. You'll be free to disappear and fuck for hours after we've gotten the whole story out of you."

Noora smiled and winked at Amanda. "I can tell you the whole thing myself. It's not like these two are subtle."

Amanda resigned herself to a long night.

Epilogue

"So, does the lucky arrow still work, now that you're having the same person draw it for every game?"

Amanda had put her phone on speaker at the beginning of Phil's call, and set it down between them on the couch so that Hilary could hear what Phil was saying. Hilary grinned, a smug look on her face, and Amanda hurried to reply before Hilary could.

"Of course it does," she said, smiling at Hilary. "It works better now."

"Gross," Phil said. "I can feel how cute and mushy your face just got through the phone."

"Can't be helped," Hilary said. "Kess is basically a Disney princess, her face was meant for sappy grins."

Amanda started actually blushing, and groaned when Hilary laughed at her.

"Now she's blushing," Hilary said. "Sorry, Phil, I'm gonna have to hang up on you and kiss your sister for a while. You understand."

"Gross!" Phil said again, laughing. "Call me back later, Amanda."

Hilary tapped the end call button and tossed the phone gently to the floor.

"Disney princess?" Amanda said. She tried to sound disapproving, but she was pretty sure it didn't work. Hilary ignored her, pulling Amanda onto her lap instead. Amanda went willingly.

"Yup," Hilary replied, looking up once she'd spent a good two minutes kissing Amanda's neck.

"Huh?" Amanda put her hands in Hilary's hair and pulled her head back down. "Don't stop that."

"Disney princess," Hilary said. "You blush like one and you've got magical roller derby powers."

"Don't be ridiculous." Amanda slid her hands under Hilary's shirt, pulling it up. "I do not have magical powers."

Hilary kissed her neck again and smirked at her. "You pout like one, too," she said, and Amanda squawked in indignation.

She didn't argue any further, though. Hilary could be all kinds of persuasive when she wanted to be, and Amanda wanted to make out more than she wanted to defend herself against accusations of Disneyfication.

Much, much later, when they were both sprawled naked on Amanda's bed, Hilary brought it back up.

"Are you sure you didn't have an evil stepmother you had to defeat in order to play roller derby?" she asked.

Amanda had Hilary's head in her lap, and was scratching her nails through Hilary's hair. Whenever Amanda stopped the motion of her hand, Hilary nudged her and made a pleading sound. It was comfortable and easy, and so it took Amanda a minute to parse what Hilary had said.

"What?" Amanda said. "Are you still on that? I am _not_ a Disney princess."

Hilary rolled over and sat up a bit, raising an eyebrow at Amanda. "So if I started singing A Whole New World, you wouldn't know Jasmine's part?"

Amanda laughed. "You can't use that as a test! Every kid born in the eighties or nineties in the United States knows that song."

"I remain dubious," Hilary said, and Amanda tackled her, sending pillows flying. She didn't keep the upper hand for long, though, and pretty soon Hilary had her on her back, holding her hands above her head.

"Give up?" Hilary asked.

Amanda struggled a bit more for show, then sighed. "Fine, I'm a Disney princess. Are you happy now?"

Hilary flicked her nose lightly and let her up. "Ecstatic," she said, then looked at the clock on Amanda's bedside table. "Oh fuck, is it actually three already? I have to be at work in like, twenty minutes."

So the real lesson in all of this, Amanda told herself, watching Hilary hunt for her clothes while cursing under her breath, was that Hilary was a giant dork, and Amanda was very weak for that action.

"See you tomorrow," Hilary told her, kissing the top of her head.

"Yeah," Amanda said. "Definitely."

 

The arrow did work better than ever, because one week later, they won the championship.

 

[the end.]


End file.
